Knife blade edges are conventionally sharpened by passing the edge of the blade between a pair of grinding wheels. The grinding wheels typically remove metal from the knife blade edge and form tapered surfaces along opposite side edges of the blade to form a sharpened knife blade edge. Knife blade edges are typically sharpened by applying the blade edge to grinding surfaces having various grits, typically from coarse to fine, such that a fine sharp knife blade edge can be formed.
A finished hollow-ground knife blade, however, is characterized by a concave surface on each of the opposite side faces of the knife blade and spaced back from the sharpened edge of the blade. Typically, these hollow-ground side faces are individually manually ground. Thus, hollow-ground knife blades often have non-symmetrical opposite hollow-ground side faces. While care and skill will sometimes result in a near-symmetrical hollow-ground knife blade, each side face of the blade requires substantial individual attention and time which increases the cost of hollow-ground knives. Accordingly, there is a need for a machine for accurately, quickly and simultaneously forming hollow-ground knife blades.